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<b><i> Penn National</i></b> and the Continuing Fight over the 'Continuous Trigger' Rule
For a generation, courts have confronted difficult issues involving insurance coverage for asbestos, environmental, and other long-tail claims. A threshold problem concerns which policies are “triggered” for coverage purposes where exposure may precede manifestation of injury or other damage by many years or even decades. An approach to the trigger issue first widely adopted in asbestos coverage litigation was the so-called “continuous trigger,” or in some jurisdictions “multiple trigger,” which deems all policies in place from initial exposure through final manifestation (in some cases, death) to have been triggered, on the theory that injury from asbestos exposure is continuous through that entire period. In jurisdictions in which a continuous or multiple trigger has been used in asbestos cases, the same approach has frequently been adopted in environmental cases based on similar reasoning. Indeed, because “continuous trigger” is coverage-maximizing, policyholders have made attempts to apply the same approach in other areas, with varying degrees of success.
A very recent decision from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Pennsylvania National Mutual Insurance Company v. St. John (“Penn National“), rejected such efforts in an environmental contamination case, finding environmental cases insufficiently similar to asbestos and limiting coverage to only one of four available policies. The court's analysis and the result suggest a narrow view of the policy concerns presented by asbestos cases, and an inhospitable climate for future cases involving environmental contamination, and potentially other long-tail liabilities, in Pennsylvania.
'Gray Water' Contamination
Major Differences In UK, U.S. Copyright Laws
This article highlights how copyright law in the United Kingdom differs from U.S. copyright law, and points out differences that may be crucial to entertainment and media businesses familiar with U.S law that are interested in operating in the United Kingdom or under UK law. The article also briefly addresses contrasts in UK and U.S. trademark law.
Strategy vs. Tactics: Two Sides of a Difficult Coin
With each successive large-scale cyber attack, it is slowly becoming clear that ransomware attacks are targeting the critical infrastructure of the most powerful country on the planet. Understanding the strategy, and tactics of our opponents, as well as the strategy and the tactics we implement as a response are vital to victory.
The Article 8 Opt In
The Article 8 opt-in election adds an additional layer of complexity to the already labyrinthine rules governing perfection of security interests under the UCC. A lender that is unaware of the nuances created by the opt in (may find its security interest vulnerable to being primed by another party that has taken steps to perfect in a superior manner under the circumstances.
Removing Restrictive Covenants In New York
In Rockwell v. Despart, the New York Supreme Court, Third Department, recently revisited a recurring question: When may a landowner seek judicial removal of a covenant restricting use of her land?